Prince George's County priority bike trails

The Prince George's County proposed 2011 Priority Projects list for the FY 2011-16 state Consolidated Transportation Program was recently released and it includes a list of 18 trail projects. Now as the letter from County Executive Baker points out, there have been a lot of budget cuts and deferrels so none of these projects are a sure thing to be built - or even designed - any time soon. Other projects, like the WB&A bridge over the Patuxent River still need to negotiate land deals before any construction can begin. Nonetheless, below the fold is a map of the proposed trails. The green lines represent so-called "on-road" trails (which is sort of an oxymoron), and the purple lines are park trails. This network would make my commute easier.

One trail that shows up on both lists is the Bowie Heritage Trail. This trail would connect the WB&A trail, Bowie the MARC station and Bowie State together. There would also be a spur to a proposed town center development. The trail would really tie together Bowie's railroad history, from the old electric rail line east of town, to the historic railroad museum and the current Marc station it would run alongside the current rail lines for much of the way. A screenshot from the Toole Design presentation is above.

Other trails included on the list are the Potomac Heritage Trail, MD-193, Oxon Hill Road, US 1 in College Park, MD-233, from the New Carrollton Metro to Seabrook, bike lanes on MD-450 east of the BW Parkway, the Prince George's County Connector, Folly Branch Trail, Piscataway Creek Trail, Oxon Run Trail and extentions of the Trolley Trail, Paint Branch Trail, Henson Creek Trail and the WB&A (both north and south of what currently exists from one end of the county to the other).

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That planning document just depressed me. Did you count how many roads they wanted to widen to "improve safety and capacity"? I hope I'm wrong, but I expect no improvements to pedestrian and bicycle safety out of those projects.

Even if every one of those trails and bike lanes is built (and 193 by Greenbelt won't), it'll be a wash access-wise if PG ends up a county of 8-lane highways and access ramps.

Yeah, I know about the WB&A, but I was trying to make the map match up with the Google Bike map (which you can't export, but if you click on the link below the map, it takes you to Google Maps and you can switch to it).

Maybe I'm wrong, but I thought I noticed that Google now marks parts of Route 1 in PG county north of the beltway as having bike lanes. Best I can tell, they're painting the center left-turn lane green and calling it a bike lane? Pretty scary. Maybe if it was truly marked it off for bikes only, like the PA Ave median bike lane in DC, it would be OK, with left turns only at designated points and lights, and drivers getting used to not just being able to pull a left just anywhere. But in the meantime, calling a center left turn lane a shared bike lane seems pretty weak.

Is this what they're envisioning for Route 1 farther down toward College Park?

one of those purple "park trails" is the trail along the suitland parkway. that's not a park trail as much as a potential commuter highway. if the suitland federal center could actually be connected to the trails in the city, a LOT of people (myself included) would consider biking to that godforsaken area.

I am a little confused about this - if the list is an official PG county document, why does it appear to come from the city of Bowie? Is there a process in place for public comment on the priority list?